


This is Real

by mangochi



Series: Reality Check [1]
Category: Almost Human
Genre: Angst, Fingerfucking, M/M, Manhandling, Porn With Feels, Wall Sex, but John likes it, handjobs, pff, slightly dub-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-12
Updated: 2013-12-12
Packaged: 2018-01-04 10:55:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1080186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangochi/pseuds/mangochi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John doesn't think he's worth it, and Dorian assures him that he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is Real

**Author's Note:**

> A birthday/Christmas gift for my beta <3  
> This is part of the Recalibrating series, which means you can put the chapters in any order in whatever timeline you choose, these are just ideas that come to me that I MUST WRITE. So if you also have this burning desire, feel free to drop a prompt in the comments or PM me, IDK how the system here works yet, haha.  
> EDIT: Tagged for non-con, but it's really not in this case. John's a big fat tsundere when it comes to sex.

"How's the leg?"

John glanced at his partner sharply, moving his hand from where it had been kneading absently at his thigh and placing it on the back of the couch instead. "Fine." He bit the word off tensely, concentrating on anything but the relentless aching. It got like this some nights, after a long day of running and jumping down stairs and chasing down unexpectedly sprightly social deviants.

Dorian looked at him skeptically, then reached over and grabbed the remote, clicking the television off. It had become somewhat of a ritual now between the two of them. Close a case, go out for a couple of beers, back to John's apartment if there was a game on, and if John was sober enough afterwards, he'd drive Dorian back to the station to charge up. More often than not, though, John ended up calling a cab for him, and it looked like it was shaping up to be one of those nights.

"Hey," John protested halfheartedly, as the screen flickered to blackness. "I was watching that!"

"No, you weren't." Dorian pushed himself off the couch and, to John's shock, dropped smoothly to his knees in front of him.

"What the hell are you doing?" John asked warily, shuffling backwards automatically on the couch as Dorian reached for his leg. He wasn't wearing anything more than a shirt over his boxers, not caring about his attire in front of the android, but now he was suddenly, incredibly self-aware of how exposed he was.

"Helping a friend out.” Dorian tilted his head in concentration as he grasped the ankle of John’s prosthetic, stretching out his leg curiously. “It’s very well-made.”

“That supposed to be a compliment?” John snapped, the faint buzz of beer in his bloodstream slightly mellowing him. Any other given time, he would’ve chewed the android out thoroughly for even _talking_ about his leg, much less put his hands all over it-

“Can you feel this?” Dorian's fingers danced up and down the sides of his calf, tapping lightly at the hard casing as they went. John could feel the faint vibrations traveling up to his hip, if not the actual touches themselves, and resisted the urge to simultaneously pull away and kick the android in the face.

He gave a surly grunt in response, crossing his arms and watching uneasily as Dorian ran his fingers back up the length of his shin. The hologram flickered oddly as the android’s natural frequencies disrupted it, showing flashes of steel gray. “It’s not as good as the real thing,” he blurted, feeling a strange urge to excuse himself.

Dorian’s hands stilled on the knee of the prosthetic, and John shifted uncomfortably as he cursed his alcohol-loosened tongue.

"Get on with it," he finally growled.

"It's beautiful," Dorian said simply, raising his eyes to meet John's with frank appraisal. John felt himself flush with anger and...and something he really didn't care to identify at the moment, and he reached down to take the damned leg off himself.

"Don't say shit like that," he muttered, fingers fumbling at the catch. “Not if you don’t mean it.”

Dorian's hands circled his wrists and held him still, a patient smile pulling at his lips. “It’s beautiful,” he murmured insistently. “You’re beautiful,” he then added, without any of the social qualms of a flesh-and-blood human, and John felt the back of his neck grow a little hotter.

He pulled his hands away sharply. “Good God, don’t you ever shut up?” He made to push himself up from the couch- damn his leg, damn the android- but Dorian gripped his thighs with surprising force and pressed him back down, all the while still wearing that stupid-ass beatific smile.

“You really need to learn how to relax, man," he said easily, and twisted off the prosthetic while John spluttered in outrage.

" _Relax?_ You were practically _groping_ -" He cut himself off, seething at Dorian's smug expression. "I'm very relaxed," he tried again, irritation flattening his tone.

“Mm hmm.” Dorian nodded wisely and stood, holding the prosthetic carefully. John watched as he crossed the room to the charging port, his right thigh prickling oddly with the sudden loss.

"You haven't taken care of it."

John blinked, looking up. "What?"

Dorian was frowning at him, his face flickering blue. "Your back-up."

It took John a few moments for it to click in, but the downward flick of Dorian's eyes sealed the deal. "What did I tell you about doing that?" he demanded, resisting the urge to pull a cushion across his lap. "Come on, man, that's way inappropriate."

"You're not relaxed because you're sexually frustrated," Dorian told him, with the air of explaining something very fundamental to a child. "How long's it been?"

Something like real anger sparked in John's chest, and somehow, it wasn't a joke anymore. "Dorian."

"It's a basic human function, John. Surely you can-"

"Can I help it that no one would want to sleep with me?" John snapped. "Not that I blame them." He slapped at his own right thigh in mounting frustration. "Not when I'm broken like- like-"

"You aren't broken." Dorian tilted his head consideringly. "Have you even tried, John?"

John looked away, glowering at his last bottle of beer. It was nearly empty, and he drained the rest of it in one go impetuously.

"I don't think finding a partner's your problem."

"Get off my case, Dorian, I don't see you humping at anyone's leg," John grunted sourly.

"I'm not human," Dorian said, and the sudden bluntness in his tone startled John into looking up. "I don't have those kind of needs. I want to help you, John-"

"I don't need your help-"

"You do," Dorian said insistently, and suddenly he was standing in front of John. John blinked up at him warily, instinctively wanting to cringe back from the sudden menacing sight.

"Think of this as therapy," Dorian said, and before John could frown and demand an explanation, Dorian was dragging him up by the front of his shirt and his arm and slamming him back against the wall beside his bedroom door.

John scrabbled at the hard surface behind him, cursing desperately as he tried to regain his balance. His face was burning with mortification, his mind and body both sharply aware of the empty space beneath his right hip, the lurching asymmetry of his center of gravity. But Dorian’s arms were tight and secure around him, a hand at the back of his right thigh and the other planted solidly in the small of his back. His chest pressed against John’s, and he could feel the thrumming of energy against his skin, the lack of a heartbeat only momentarily disconcerting. Dorian sighed and pressed his forehead against John's, glaring at him disapprovingly with pale eyes.

John tried to turn away, but the android had him in a perfect hold. "Dorian, what the-"

“You make me angry sometimes, you know,” the android said evenly, and John’s breath hitched involuntarily. He kicked himself mentally for it, tearing his eyes away from Dorian’s steady gaze and giving an ineffectual shove at hard, unyielding shoulders.

“Damn it, put me down-”

“Why do you do this?” Dorian continued, completely ignoring him. The first kiss was brief and completely unexpected, an experimental press of closed lips to the corner of John’s mouth. “Why do you hide like that?” The android sounded almost sad as he pulled away, his brow furrowed in confusion.

John swore in rising panic and pushed aside the racing of his heartbeat, the instinctive response of his body to the physical contact he hadn’t had in so long- he’d almost forgotten what it felt like to have another body flush against his, touching him, surrounding him-

“No,” he rasped helplessly. “No, Dorian, I can’t-”

Another kiss, this one no less insistent against his chin. “You can.”

John closed his eyes; he couldn’t look, couldn’t bear to see Dorian watching him fall apart. His hands had worked into Dorian’s jacket, knuckles clenched around the black fabric.

    Dorian’s lips were colder than he had expected, and smoother. There was something stiff and inorganic about the kiss, but the motions were familiar and John found himself parting his lips automatically, welcoming the sensation of Dorian’s tongue against his own. He tasted faintly of metal and ozone, the sharp edge of it making John dizzy. The inside of Dorian’s mouth was cooler and drier than a human’s, but it was somehow still hot as hell and John found himself melting into it, tugging Dorian closer, closer-

    Dorian shoved a knee between his legs, wedging him higher against the wall until he was practically lifted off the floor, and held him there, leaving one hand free to stroke over John’s right thigh. His fingers skimmed the edge of the protective cap over his nerve endings, sending a buzz of something that wasn’t quite pain, wasn’t quite pleasure, jagging up to John’s brain.

Dorian’s hand slid under the leg of his boxers, pushing the fabric up his hip as he ran his fingers over John’s skin. Tracing veins, writing nonsense words into the twitching skin of his inner thigh that could be streams of coding or Latin, for all John knew. "So beautiful," Dorian whispered again, before biting down on John's lower lip in a precise motion.

John pulled his head away automatically at the sting of pain, gasping breathlessly for air. He could feel himself hardening against Dorian's thigh despite himself, his heart pounding, leaping in his throat. He was going insane, the sound of Dorian's voice in his ears and his lightning taste on his tongue.

"Stop," he said, more sharply than he had intended, and felt a pang when the android froze instantly, blue eyes locked on his.

"Do you want me to stop?" The hand up his boxers shifted slightly, almost to the waistband by now. John could hear blood pounding in his ears, a rushing sound that drowned out all coherent thought.

"I will, if you ask me to." Dorian leaned forward, mouthing lightly at John's jaw. He felt the flick of a dry tongue against the day-old stubble. "Ask," Dorian whispered into the soft skin beneath his ear. “Tell me what you want.”

John's hands were still fisted in Dorian's jacket, his foot propped against Dorian's shin for support. He took a shuddering breath, felt everything he knew or thought he knew shatter into a million pieces until all there was left was him, the wall, and his fucked-up android. His partner.

“You’re crazy,” he croaked, but there was no strength in his words.

“Maybe.” Dorian trailed his open mouth across John’s cheek, lips brushing his eyelid before pulling back to consider him gravely. "What do you want, John?"

John tightened his grip decisively and hauled Dorian forward, crushing their mouths together with a newfound ferocity. Dorian responded instantly, tilting his head to gain more leverage as his tongue scraped curiously over the roof of John's mouth, catching every panting exhalation and half-uttered expletive with perfect execution.

"You know, I have this theory," Dorian said as he pulled back to give John air, his own voice perfectly even. The only indication that he was affected at all, the smug bastard, was the erratic flickering of his circuits as he looked John up and down. John glared exasperatedly, chest heaving as he struggled to suck in air through bruised lips.

"I think," Dorian continued, nonchalantly sliding a hand under John's shirt, "that you're so ornery because you don't like being comfortable." John flinched as he felt fingers tracing up the knobs of his spine, grazing over sweat-slick skin. "You don't like people being kind to you. You don't like being treated gently."

"Fuck you," John snapped, because he could, and hissed in surprise as Dorian pushed his face against the side of his neck and kissed the pulse point beneath his jaw with aching tenderness.

"But you're worth it." Dorian's voice lowered in pitch, the edge of a growl entering it. "So I'm giving it to you whether you want it or not. John."

John groaned involuntarily at the sound of his name, his hips jerking forward against Dorian's thigh. It wasn't nearly enough friction, enough contact, and he rocked again more insistently. The android pointedly ignored him, taking his time in mapping out John's collarbone with a line of teasing kisses, bunching his hands in the thin black shirt and tearing it apart effortlessly. John let out a stifled noise of complaint as Dorian dropped the scraps of cloth on the floor and spread his hands over the now bared skin before him appreciatively.

“Nice,” the android muttered absently, digging his fingertips hard enough into John’s abdomen to make the man flinch and scowl. John felt alternatively dizzy and horny to the point of incoherence, wondering somewhere dimly in the back of his mind how it was possible for him to flush so much and yet be so hard. He hadn’t beaten off in weeks, hadn’t had the time or the motivation or will, and now Dorian’s hands were on him, _touching_ him-

“Not like you,” John managed to pant, readjusting his grip on Dorian’s shoulders to keep from slipping sideways onto the floor when his partner slid his hands up to press against his pectorals curiously.

“Me?” Dorian gave a light huff of amusement. “I was built like this, John, I was _made_.” His thumbs nudged at John’s nipples, and John bit back a shaky curse. “This, though. This is all you.” Dorian’s voice trailed off in a half-sigh. “It’s perfect. You’re perfect.”

“Shut up-”

“You’re perfect,” Dorian said again, this time into his mouth. John groaned when those wandering hands finally moved down, trailing over his navel and groping down into his straining boxers. He hooked his arms around Dorian’s neck blindly, panting tensely into smooth, unmarked skin. He wanted it to be rough, wanted it to hurt, because then it would be real, but Dorian was frustratingly gentle as he ground his palm forward and clasped loose fingers around his length.

"Oh God," John moaned, a note of panic entering his voice. He wasn't supposed to like this, wasn't supposed to enjoy it, but his hips were snapping forward on their own accord into Dorian's hand, his fingers bruising against the steel frame beneath synthetic skin.

"Dorian," the android corrected, then frowned. "That is what the usual response is, right?"

John felt lightheaded with hysteria and he choked out a trembling laugh against Dorian's collar. He was almost completely naked, he noticed abruptly, while Dorian was still fully dressed. It should have felt wrong, almost offensive, but his blood only surged hotter with the realization and he felt himself approaching climax with embarrassing speed when Dorian scraped his nails across a stiff nipple.

"Fuck," John swore vehemently, his breaths coming in shallow bursts as he clawed at Dorian's back. "Shit, I'm gonna, Dorian-"

Dorian's hand disappeared from his boxers instantly, and John felt as if the carpet had been yanked out from beneath him, rolled up, and hurled at his head. His hips shuddered forward into empty space, nearly throwing him off balance as his foot slipped from Dorian's calf, and he roundly cursed Dorian and every one of his manufacturers with relish.

"Be patient," Dorian chided, his hands moving to wrap firmly around John's ribs, picking him up easily. There was a whirl of motion, a gust of cool air, and John found himself bouncing on his back on top of his unmade bed. "Son of a-" He rose up on his elbows at once, spitting mad, then caught his breath as Dorian crouched predatorily over him, blue eyes gleaming unnaturally.

"That's better," Dorian mumbled, lowering his head and pressing his face against John's shoulder. John flinched when he felt the first lick down his bicep, tracing the inked lines of the coiled dragon beneath his skin.

"Stop that," he growled, trying weakly to push Dorian off, but the android persisted, pressing John down with the unexpectedly heavy weight of his body. He sucked curiously at the tattoo, pulling back to consider the forming bruise there with an almost childish delight.

The scar on the left side of John's chest earned some attention as well, Dorian's strangely smooth tongue laving over the raised ridge of scar tissue until even the air made John's skin prickle with sensitivity. He tugged helplessly at Dorian's jacket, wanting to do _something,_ and Dorian let him wrestle the garment off obligingly. He didn't move to remove his shirt, though, and John was losing coordination too swiftly to try.

Dorian tugged at the waistband of John’s boxers insistently until the man had the presence of mind to lift his hips off the bed, left leg straining to take his weight as Dorian swiftly stripped off the stained garment and threw it over his shoulder. John caught a glimpse of it dangling over the lampshade and stifled a chuckle of pure nerves before Dorian surged over him again, teeth and tongue working across John’s chest.

Dorian's hand worked back down between his legs, and John shifted his knee out automatically to better accommodate the shift as Dorian gave him a slow, lingering stroke that had his toes curling in the sheets. He swore mercilessly and panted at the ceiling as the android began to, ironically, take him apart thoroughly.

Dorian's touch was _torture._ He brought him to the edge of release again and again, always pausing at the very last second and leaving John a shuddering, cursing mess beneath him. John clawed at iron arms, pleading for God knows what- for Dorian to stop, for Dorian to finish him off, for Dorian to kiss him again.

Then Dorian turned his wrist so that the heel of his palm ground against John's erection, his fingertips tickling gently at the tender skin beneath-

"No," John gasped instinctively, trying to curl in on himself. He grabbed at Dorian's wrist desperately and, inexplicably, the android stopped.

"Trust me, John. It'll be good," Dorian reassured him. His fingertip probed at the tight bud of muscle, rubbing in small circles that sent lightning up John's spine.

"No, it's not- I haven't-" John scowled helplessly, and Dorian blinked slowly in comprehension.

“I’ll be careful,” he said reassuringly, and distracted John with a bite to the side of his jaw.

John shook his head violently. “No, no, don’t be-”

“Shhh.” Dorian moved up his body and kissed him until he was breathless, chest heaving and the taste of steel heavy in his mouth. Dorian’s tongue flicked out to the corner of his lips, catching a trace of John’s saliva thoughtfully. “Your blood sugar's a bit low, John. I really think you should try cutting back on those noodles."

John, struggling to catch his breath, threw him a wild “screw you” glare.

Undeterred, Dorian shifted until he was situated more firmly between John’s legs. “Want to see a trick?” His finger pressed forward, and before John could protest, Dorian was making his way up the first knuckle.

Cursing, John threw his head back against the bed, sucking in deep breaths as his muscles tightened and flexed confusedly around the intrusion. It burned and he somehow welcomed the sensation, but Dorian’s finger was unexpectedly slick, sliding in deeper with little resistance. “You...self- _lubricate_?” John eventually gasped incredulously. “What the hell are you, some kinda-” He choked off again on a ragged groan as a second finger worked its way in alongside the first. “ _Fuck._ ”

Dorian hummed, eyes fixed on John’s face in fascination. “That’s a nice sound.”

“Screw you, ah, shit.” John faltered, eyes clenching shut automatically as Dorian did something terrible and altogether too good with his fingers. His erection throbbed, hard and neglected between his legs, and he resisted the urge to reach down and bring himself off. He could do it, it’d be over in seconds, the way this was going, but something in him wanted to draw this out...see where it went. After all, he’d always been one to take risks.

Dorian took on a slow, maddening rhythm, his fingers sliding in and out with an almost wet sound that made John want to simultaneously die and thrust back. He bit his lip until he tasted a sharp burst of copper, breathing heavily through his nose as Dorian gripped the back of his knee, spreading him wider and pushing in deeper with- how many- John had lost count....three. Three fingers now, twisting and sliding and dripping with whatever Dorian was secreting, and God, was that a weird thought-

Dorian hit a spot, somewhere deep in John, that made his eyes fly open and caused a loud groan that shocked himself. Waves of undeniable pleasure rocked through his body, pulsing deep from wherever the hell Dorian's fingers were now.

"You like that?" Dorian asked intently, eyes widening at John's reaction. "You like this here?" He did it again, and John cried out, felt pressure building rapidly in his gut, coiling and burning and if Dorian didn't touch him again, he was going to die. Dorian's fingers flexed out slightly, stretching him open even more, and he shuddered at the feeling of cool air breaching him.

"Fuck me," John panted, reaching down and gripping at Dorian's hair and neck wildly. He wondered briefly what he had to look like at that moment, sweaty and panting and disheveled under Dorian's hands, but he couldn't have cared less ago anything other than the thought of Dorian filling him, inside him, burning him from the inside out. "Please. Dorian, I- oh God- I need-" He choked off with a strangled groan, eyes fluttering shut briefly as Dorian nailed the same spot perfectly.

Dorian paused, a strange, wondering expression crossing his face as he gazed at him. "Next time," he said finally, and something rose and fell and surged back again with abandon in John. "Today, you're going to come just from this." Dorian hooked his fingers again without warning, drawing a startled keen from John as he thrust back against the motion. "Just like this, just for me. You're so beautiful, John."

“Shut up-ahh-” John bit down on the bedraggled moan before it could escape as Dorian abruptly levered his hips off the bed, plunging his fingers in deeper from the new angle. Dorian grinned down at him between his thighs, hooking John’s left leg casually over his shoulder and leaning down to place a kiss on John’s chin.

“I know you want it hard,” Dorian murmured, and John was dizzy with the sound of him, the feel of him, the color of his eyes. “I know you want it to hurt. You want it to be real. But this, right now, _this_ is real, John.” He twisted his fingers and John cried out hoarsely, hands clenching at his own thighs now to hold them open. It was demeaning, it was dirty, it was frankly the most humiliating thing he’d ever gone through, letting Dorian take him apart like this.

“This is real.” A kiss on the tip of his straining erection, heavy and dripping stickily on John’s stomach with every thrust. “And this.” John felt his spine bend farther as Dorian folded him nearly in half and lowered his head to lick at the hot, swollen flesh around his fingers. White sparks exploded behind John’s eyes, and he let go of his leg to reach down for himself, wanting this to over, never wanting it to end-

Dorian caught his hand, lacing their fingers together around his throbbing length. “And this,” Dorian said softly, his eyes wide and locked on John’s face.

“Dorian-” John gasped, his mind a flickering mess of firing synapses. “Dorian, please-”

“I want to see you,” Dorian told him, his voice hushed. John snapped his eyes shut stubbornly, his hips jolting upwards and a wordless groan wrenched from deep in his chest as Dorian flicked his wrist _just right_.

“John, open your eyes,” Dorian urged, thumbing over his head in a deft motion that- _shit_.

“John, please.”

He opened his eyes and looked into endless blue as Dorian squeezed once, long and hard. His vision flashed white and he felt hot liquid splatter his abdomen and chest, felt his muscles tightening involuntarily around Dorian’s fingers and wrenching another whimper from his ravaged throat.

“John,” he thought he heard Dorian say through the roaring in his ears. John came back down to Earth reluctantly, eyelids fluttering in exhaustion as his muscles began to slowly unlock. Dorian lowered his hips back down to the mattress carefully, giving his right thigh an affectionate squeeze in the process. His fingers left John’s body with a wet squelch that would have had him flushing dark red any other time, but he was too wrung out to to muster more than a grunt of slight discomfort.

“I don't suppose you could do that again?” Dorian whispered, running a hand through John’s sweat-streaked hair. John huffed incredulously in response and threw an arm across his eyes, self-conscious now as the afterglow began to fade. He was burningly aware of his nakedness, of the emptiness next to his left leg, but somehow the ache wasn't nearly as bad.

The mattress dipped as Dorian levered himself off, and John tried to stifle the disappointment welling briefly within him. He must have dozed off for a few seconds, worn out as he was, and he startled back to clarity at the touch of a wet cloth swiping over his stomach, cleaning off the traces of his release.

He watched with hooded eyes as Dorian meticulously wiped him down, moving lightly over twitching skin and slack muscles. John made an involuntary noise in the back of his throat when Dorian's hand dipped down between his legs, and the android glanced up with a telling gleam in his eyes before withdrawing.

John reached down absently, trailing his fingers around the curved end of the protective cap. His nerves thrummed, and a lazy coil of sensation prickled up to his hip. “What about you?” he heard his own slurred voice asking, eyes fixed on Dorian as the android picked his jacket off the floor and draped it neatly over the back of a chair.

“Me?” Dorian turned and gazed at him curiously. “What about me?”

John felt himself flushing weakly, and he gestured vaguely. “You know. Don’t you…?”

Dorian huffed in amusement, and he sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling the end of the crumpled sheet up to cover John. “I’m fine. Watching you was enough.” While John struggled to register that, the android added thoughtfully, “Next time, though, I think I’d like to try.”

“Next...” John spluttered incredulously. “You-”

“Go to sleep, John.” A hand pressed against his forehead, scrunching his eyelids down gently. “You’re tired.”

Sleep. Yes. Sleep was good. John turned his face blindly towards the hand as it withdrew, too tired and properly sexed-out to care about what little dignity he had left. “You…?” he murmured, already half-asleep.

“I’ll be here.” Dorian's fingers were the last thing he felt, pressing reassuringly against his cheek.

 


End file.
